After more than seven hours of debate, the senators adopted on the night of Sunday to Monday article 2 of the pension reform bill by 244 votes against 96. The Senate dominated by the right thus approved the creation a “senior index” in companies, on the place of the oldest, but only for those with more than 300 employees.
The government relied on the “wisdom” of senators, who removed the obligation of this index for companies with more than 50 employees, a threshold which had been added by the National Assembly last month.
The index will be mandatory from November 2023 for companies with more than 1,000 employees, and for those with more than 300 employees from July 2024.
Employers will be liable to financial penalties in the event of non-publication of this index, but no obligation of result has been set with regard to the employment of seniors.
The left has long scrapped against this index, pointed as a “legislative rider”, and perceived as “a gadget” and a “decoy”.
“A first stone”
“Is the government ignoring the critical situation after 55 years” when “many seniors are not finding jobs”, asked the socialist Monique Lubin, worrying like others about the effects of the rise of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years old. “The index is as useful as the green number to fight the heat wave”, launched the communist Fabien Gay.
Conversely, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt defended “a tool for measuring the involvement of companies”. “We were inspired by the index in terms of professional equality (women-men, editor’s note), with which companies have improved their rating” and the senior index constitutes “a first stone”, he added. .
The senatorial right said yes to the index, a simple “photograph”, but on condition that there is no additional sanction and that its field is reduced.
In the largest companies, “we can build a real ambitious policy of employability of seniors”, argued the rapporteur for the old age branch, René-Paul Savary (LR). He stressed that the threshold of 300 employees was also the threshold for the obligation to negotiate on the forward-looking management of employment and skills.
The smallest companies do not have sufficient human resources services, also justified elected LR and centrists. In the National Assembly, the right had voted against article 2, after the extension of the index to companies with more than 50 employees from July 2025. This had caused the rejection of the article, a serious setback for government and presidential majority. Deputies and senators will later have to try to agree on the application thresholds.